Childhood poly-victimization and children’s health: A nationally representative study

Abstract

Background: Although research on the negative effects of childhood poly-victimization is substantial, few studies have examined the relationship between poly-victimization and younger children's physical health and diseases.Objective: This study examines the effects of poly-victimization on children's health problems requiring medical attention. Methods:We collected data with a self-report questionnaire from a national proportionately stratified sample of 6,233 4 th -grade students covering every city and county in Taiwan.Results: Logistic regression analyses demonstrate a significant dose-response relationship between children's poly-victimization exposure and their health problems including hospitalization, serious injury, surgery, daily-medication requirements, heart murmurs, asthma, dizziness or fainting, allergies, kidney disease, special therapy, smoking, and alcohol use. The results indicate that children's risk of having a health problem grew significantly with each increase in the number of victimization types that children experienced.Conclusions: These research findings underscore the effect of poly-victimization on children's health problems requiring medical attention, and stress the need for both proper screening methods for children's exposure to poly-victimization and stronger awareness of poly-victimization's effects on health conditions in healthcare clinics.

Relations among Poly-Bullying Victimization, Subjective Well-Being and Resilience in a Sample of Late Adolescents

“…Exposure to multiple types of violence and victimization has immediate and lifelong effects on physical and mental health [28][29][30]. Previous research showed that poly-victimization represents a substantial source of higher mental health risk than exposure to any individual victimization type, even when it repeatedly occurs [27][28][29][30][31].…”

The Effects of Social and Cultural Factors on Child Poly-victimization in Hong Kong

“…Chan reported the lifetime adolescent poly-victimization rates in China as 14–18% (Chan, 2014; Chan et al, 2017). A representative study in Taiwan reported that 30% of children aged 10–11 years had experienced four or more types of victimization in the preceding year (Feng et al, 2019). This is comparable to the fact that preceding-year experiences of poly-victimization were reported to be 10% among U.S. children and adolescents aged 2–17 years (Finkelhor et al, 2007).…”

Intimate partner violence and asthma in pediatric and adult populations

“…40 Abarca et al 41 also found that children with increased number of ACEs, which included maternal physical IPV exposure, had increased adjusted incidence rate ratios for lifetime and current asthma (eg, 4 or more ACEs: incidence rate ratio, 1.81; 95% CI, 1.20-2.71). In a nationally representative cross-sectional study with fourth-grade students in Taiwan, Feng et al 42 reported that children's polyvictimization exposures, to include witnessing interparental violence, had significant dose-response relationship to asthma after adjusting for multiple other family risk factors such as alcoholism or drug abuse (AOR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.03-1.13, P = .002). A total of 27.8% reported interparental violence.…”